The radical notion that women like good movies
In many ways, Gus Van Sant’s ‘My Own Private Idaho’ is a film about duality, weaving together conflicting stories about love, family and the inescapable lure of home, even when it is a place you can never go back to again. And that duality also lends itself heavily to the sexual identities of the film’s main characters, Mike and Scott, two street hustlers with opposite views of their own bisexuality…
It’s when the older girls on the dance team begin to have “fits” or what’s referred to as hysteria, that Toni begins to question just how much she wants to fit in. It’s fear mixed with curiosity that drives her. It’s an exploration of a part of the human psyche, told less with words and more with images, a coming-of-age story about friendship, belonging and identity, but with an eerie, occasionally unnerving tone.
The male gaze either holds Jo back from the start, or else shows an “educational” transformation from an “unruly” female into a “desirable” young woman who knows her place.
While Rory struggled with the myriad of concerns afforded to a main character: her love life, her future, her friendships and family, Lane’s biggest conflict was always her overbearing, uber-religious mother and to a lesser degree, her own Korean heritage. Being Korean is never posed as a positive thing for Lane, it is only a marker of difference.
White and non-Black people can have a “bad hair day.” But only Black folks get labeled with bad hair for life, no matter how it is groomed. Especially Black women. Go to any retail store that sells hair products and the ethnic section (read:Black) has more hair creams, gels, mousse, sprays, relaxers, grease, puddings, pomades, hair butter, oils, lotions, to fry, dye and lay that bushy crown to the side. I won’t even get into the hot combs, wigs, weaves, lacefronts, extensions, and clip-ons used to hide a Black woman’s natural hair state. It’s one thing when little Black girls are indoctrinated early to hate their hair, but what about little Black boys who may also be genderqueer? How is this hair struggle tolerated by a homophobic mother struggling to keep her head above water?
Jerry never leads with Joe or Sugar. This suggestion, that the character might be made more assertive and empowered by a female role, effectively challenges the patriarchal concept of femininity as necessarily submissive and disempowering; femininity in ‘Some Like It Hot’ is portrayed as empowering and liberating when it better expresses the individual’s natural impulses and identity.
A friend of mine turned me onto the show Hit & Miss, which is a six episode British series currently streaming on Netflix. Hit & Miss follows Mia, played by the ever-talented Chloë Sevigny. Mia is a transgender hit woman who finds she has an 11 year-old son, Ryan.
Klute is one of the key American films of the 1970s. Engaging with themes of surveillance and voyeurism, Alan Pakula’s masterpiece is, first of all, an absorbing, suspenseful thriller. It owes its intimidating ambiance, in great part, to Gordon Willis’s extraordinarily skillful and innovative photography. Klute, however, transcends the genre in the many ways it addresses contemporary gender politics; the New York-set neo-noir is both a character-driven study of female identity and sexuality as well as an unsettling portrait of misogyny. Starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland–two of the most interesting cinematic icons of the day–Klute is also an actor’s film. Fonda won a richly deserved Best Actress Oscar for her outstanding central performance.
This is a guest post by Margaret Howie. With the release of Taken 2, Liam Neeson impersonations are all over the internet again. You’d think that we had all been starved of Neeson material, but it was only back in January that his Man vs. the Wild movie, The Grey was released. Along with it … Continue reading “The Neeson Identity: What the Release of ‘The Grey’ Got Wrong About Men”
This is a guest review by Eva Phillips. It might come off as a bit absurd, even an effrontery to some, to suggest that a film in which RuPaul must resist the titillation of a faux-fellatio on a pitchfork and bigotry is gleefully bellowed in the hate mantra “Silly faggots, dicks are for chicks!” is … Continue reading “LGBTQI Week: Stranger in a Queer Land: How ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’ and Susan Sontag Defined My Trembling Identity”
The fact that ‘It Follows’ is a horror film, and a surprisingly effective one, is almost secondary to the respectful way it develops its characters, particularly its protagonist, Jay, portrayed in a breakout performance by Maika Monroe.
The film is a huge sleeper hit, by low-budget indie standards. This week, it expanded to an astonishing 1,655 theaters nationwide. I spoke with Monroe and Mitchell recently by phone about how the film was made and what makes it so unique.
‘Starry Eyes’ is a bloody, brilliant horror spectacle, about a desperate starlet who makes a dark deal for the promise of fame. Creepy, gross and well observed, complete with a complex female character and a crazy good performance from star, Alex Essoe, it is a film you have to see to believe, as long as you’ve got a strong stomach, that is. I spoke with writer-directors, Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer about their film, their inspirations and the universalities about struggling to make your way in Hollywood.
